Session Information
23 SES 13 D, Managerial Accountability and its Effects on School Education
Paper Session
Contribution
NPM is a global discourse of public sector reform which has penetrated in a wide range of countries around the world and has been adopted and enacted in the Chilean education system, as a way to solve the well-known “market failures” (Verger, Bonal & Zancajo, 2016). NPM covers a wide variety of cultural and organizational practices designed to change the structures, values and behaviors of public sector workers (Ball and Youdell, 2008). Within the NPM agenda, school autonomy and accountability are two central pieces of this global discourse. International organizations such as the OECD and the World Bank have played a central role in the promotion and dissemination of these policies at the international level. In the political discourse in education, NPM is often used as an "umbrella concept" (Gunter, et al., 2016). According to Verger and Normand (2015), the wide dissemination and acceptance of the NPM is due to the fact that it acts as a "floating signifier", so its ambiguity makes it a desirable political solution that can be easily adapted to the discourses of different ideological traditions, such as conservatism, neoliberalism, and social-democracy. This is especially true in the case of accountability, because it is a policy that allows for multiple design options and can be translated in different ways (Parcerisa & Verger, 2016; see Leithwood y Earl, 2000; Maroy y Voisin, 2013; West, et al. 2011). Despite having certain common features, Global Education Policies (GEPs) often experience processes of hybridization, "mutation" and re-signification during their dissemination, adoption and re-contextualization (Peck & Theodore, 2010). The re-contextualization of GEP is sensitive to local contingencies, such as historical, cultural, economic and institutional characteristics of the domestic context in which they are adopted and re-contextualized (see Ball, 1998; Verger, et al. 2012). Cultural Political Economy (CPE) approach is a very useful tool for the study of the adoption and re-contextualization of global ideas, because it allows the integration of semiotic and material factors in the analysis of these complex processes (Jessop, 2010). According to Jessop (2010), to understand the process of policy change, we have to take into account three evolutionary mechanisms: variation, selection and retention. Variation is the starting point, a moment where settled discourses and policies enter into crisis, opening a rift for re-politicization and change. At this moment multiple interpretations are generated on the causes and potential solutions to the crisis that enter into competition. The selection implies the identification, by the policy-makers, of a particular narrative about the causes and the most suitable solutions to solve the crisis. The retention refers to the process of sedimentation and institutionalization of discourses in political programs and particular practices. In Chile, market-oriented education policies began more than thirty years ago and were driven by the neoliberal dictatorship (1973-1990), which carried out a broad process of education privatization. However, its implementation has resulted in multiple alterations and failures, and has contributed to increase educational inequalities (Bellei, 2015; Verger, Bonal & Zancajo, 2016). New Public Management (NGP) policies, and specifically of accountability, were adopted during the decade of 2000, with the objective of correcting the multiple failures of the school market and improving education quality. In this sense, the study aims to analyze the adoption and re-contextualization of accountability policies in the Chilean education system, as well as to examine the actors involved and the main drivers and contingencies (political, institutional, cultural and economic) that have mediated in the adoption of these reforms. Finally, this research tries to examine the role of soft-power in the policy adoption of accountability policies in Chile, exploring persuasion strategies and meaning-making processes among policy-makers.
Method
Expected Outcomes
References
Ball, S. J. (1998). Big policies/small world: An introduction to international perspectives in education policy. Comparative education, 34(2), 119-130. Ball, S. J., & Youdell, D. (2008). Hidden privatisation in public education. Brussels: Education International. Bellei, C. (2015). El gran experimento: Mercado y privatización de la educación chilena. Santiago de Chile: LOM Ediciones. Falabella, A. (2015). El mercado escolar en Chile y el surgimiento de la Nueva Gestión Pública: El tejido de la política entre la dictadura neoliberal y los gobiernos de la centroizquierda (1979 a 2009). Educação & Sociedade,36(132), 699-722. Gunter, H. M., Grimaldi, E., Hall, D., & Serpieri, R. (2016). New Public Management and the Reform of Education: European Lessons for Policy and Practice. London: Routledge. Jessop, B. (2010) Cultural political economy and critical policy studies, Critical Policy Studies, 3 (3-4), 336-356, DOI: 10.1080/19460171003619741 Kingdon, J.W. (1995). Agendas, alternatives, and public policies. New York: HarperCollins College Publishers. Leithwood, K., & Earl, L. (2000). Educational accountability effects: An international perspective. Peabody Journal of Education, 75(4), 1-18. Maroy, C., Voisin, A. (2013). As transformações recentes das políticas de accountability na educação: desafios e incidências das ferramentas de ação pública. Educação & Sociedade, 34(124), 1-24. OECD. (2011). PISA in Focus 9: School autonomy and accountability: Are they related to student performance?. París: OECD. Enlace: http://www.oecd.org/pisa/pisaproducts/pisainfocus/48910490.pdf Parcerisa, L., & Verger, A. (2016). Rendición de cuentas y política educativa: Una revisión de la evidencia internacional y futuros retos para la investigación. Profesorado, revista de currículum y formación del profesorado, 20(3), 15-51. Verger, A., BonaL, X., & Zancajo, A. (2016). What Are the Role and Impact of Public-Private Partnerships in Education? A Realist Evaluation of the Chilean Education Quasi-Market. Comparative Education Review, 60(2), 223-248. Verger, A., Novelli, M., y Altinyelken, H. K. (2012). Global Education Policy and International Development: New Agendas, Issues and Policies. London: Continuum. World Bank (2007). Design of a new institutional arrangement for education quality assurance. Washington: The World Bank.
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